


Bullet with Butterfly Wings

by tombtowomb



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Body Horror, But not like gay denial, Canon Compliant, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Denial, Depression, Grief, Iron Man 3 Compliant, M/M, More like "everything is shit but I'm ignoring it" denial, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Nightmares, Other additional tags to be added later, PTSD, The Avengers (2012) Compliant, The Bisexual America Deserves, The Long Journey of Steve Rogers Through Depression, This is me angsting all over the place, Tony Stark Has A Heart, sorry i had to
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-04-25 12:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14378718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tombtowomb/pseuds/tombtowomb
Summary: A story about how Steve deals and doesn't deal with stuff.And then Bucky comes back and forces him to face what he hides inside.





	1. Asleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miharuchii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miharuchii/gifts).



> Hi there! Thank you for even clicking on this thing.  
> So, I started writing this almost a year ago after rewatching Civil War for the hundredth time and then I had a really hard time between school and family and moving to a different city and starting college, so I actually have written only five chapters of this. I already have it all planned out, so no worries, if you get invested you'll know how this ends one way or another.  
> Since I wrote the plot a year ago, it's not gonna cover the most recent movies.  
> Also, the rating is gonna eventually change, around the seventh chapter, so beware.  
> I only wanted to write about Stevie-boy and his feelings.  
> Enjoy. <3

When he was a reckless young boy living in the 30s, Steve usually woke up with a half breath locked in his ribcage while the other half left it unsteadily, the morning light blinding his weak eyes and a slight pain woven in the notches of his spine (and he didn't want to talk about how he woke in the actual bad days). Now he's still young but with a century old tiredness knotted tight with his bones and when he wakes up, his breaths are deep and easy, the morning light turns everything sharp and clear, not a smudge in anything his eyes lay on and his spine is straight and doesn't bring him any pain.  
But as incredible as it may sound, that's not the biggest difference here.   
It's in the mild panic that sticks under his skin after a nightmare, it's in the bittersweet memories he always carries with him, it's in the loneliness of a well heated apartment he never asked for. But he wakes up always to the same four walls and to the same ache in his heart that he's started to think of as nostalgia, the kind that feels like drowning, and he keeps surviving with water in his lungs. He starts up a routine filled with running and working out, because he doesn't really know what to do with his time, and manages.   
He wakes up, gets out of his apartment, starts to relearn the streets he grew up in, he plows on through this new incredible life and lets people flow past him completely.   
He doesn't bother reaching out or seeking companionship, he puts all his efforts in being bland and uninterested so no one approaches him and gets the impression that he isn't actually a living thing.   
And when his mind provides him with images of dark hair and fair eyes, of an arm thrown over his shoulders and a deep laugh resonating in the air, he goes to the gym and hits the punching bag hard and wills himself to forget.   
And when other images of everything he's lost appear (and dear Lord, there are so many -dark curls bouncing against rosy cheeks, red lipstick carefully applied on a smiling mouth), he can't really afford to think about it (a pair of ominous mustaches and a bowler bouncing on the hard surface of an army cot, a bottle of bourbon passed among his favorite people in the world) and his hits grow harder (a grin that made him warm even during the coldest day in the Alps, his fingers so gentle when entwined with Steve's but so unforgiving when placed on the trigger of a rifle) and he wills himself back in the unforgiving, blissful ice.   
The punching bag is usually at his feet by this point.   
  
  
  
  
It's not that he doesn't get it, okay, it's not that he can't grasp the delicately complicated logic that goes behind every piece of technology nowadays. Learning how to sift through computer brands or the buttons on his TV remote control isn't a hard task once you've understood the concept of it (bang your fist on it till it works).   
It's just that he can't always remember how the damned coffee machine works and he swears every man on earth could get confused when faced by such a monstrosity built in sharp lines and equipped with the most annoying beeps and trills. And he's never actually liked coffee, but everyone has it now and he's trying so hard to fit in, to fade among the masses so that he doesn't have to deal with them.   
If _he_ were here, he'd be laughing hysterically at the irony of it all, of him trying to disguise himself now that he's all of six feet tall and as broad as a barn door when his tiny nineteen years old self sought the opposite and couldn't have it -that's not the kind of train of thought he can afford to engage, so he mentally scolds himself and keeps pounding the keys of the coffee machine until it finally starts to work.   
He gives a little satisfied smile and is proud of himself for getting out of this small battle with modern times as the winner.   
He patiently waits for the mug to fill and then reaches his team in the smallest dining room in the whole Stark Tower -which is still bigger than Steve's first apartment.   
He sits down on a chair as near the door as possible, nodding at Barton who waves at him from the other end of the table, stuffing his mouth full of pancakes. Steve sips at his coffee, manages not to grimace at the foul taste of it and listens to his team, still battered up and tired, fighting about the right amount of pasta to cook for lunch.   
("You do realize that Thor, the goddamn Norse God with all those muscles, is gonna come too, right? I say we need at least three pots full of water going and then throw pasta in them until they're choking full")   
This is the phase after a big mission where everything seems dull and stagnant and just a little unreal to Steve, for whom everything is unreal these days anyway. He is used to the strange calmness, the need to rest and the endless lectures about the consequences of their reckless actions -which he's learned can arrive from everywhere since the internet- but he's never had a big fancy breakfast in a big fancy tower with the Commandos after a mission and he feels a little weirded out.   
Steve rubs at his forehead, mindful not to touch the cut on his eyebrow too much -even if it's already mostly healed- and smiles faintly at Romanoff, who is filling the chair next to him, her plate full to the brim.   
Doctor Banner toys with his glass of orange juice, writing letters in the mist, his shoulders hunched and his body disguised in a gray hoodie.   
Suddenly Pepper Potts enters the dining room, followed as always by the loud clicking of her heels on the floor, and flashes them a smile before helping herself to the pile of pancakes at the centre of the table.   
She talks quietly but with firmness, asking everyone if they're staying the night again, then the topic shifts to the Battle and Steve can see the weariness around her eyes, can imagine the fear that gripped her the day before, when the love of her life was risking his.   
She's not openly criticizing SHIELD's approach -which consisted in a pat on the back and a shove- but casually shifts the attention to what actually needs to be done now that the damage has been made, with no need to be whiny about it.   
When Banner asks about it as politely as ever, she lists casualties and which parts of the city are more devastated by the Chitauri invasion in her overly professional way and Steve feels blown away from how competent she is.   
She names a couple of charities that she and Tony are founding and Steve carefully commits them to memory so he can shove some of the unwanted cash that fills his pockets in their direction, which he's sure is a more deserving one.   
After she's done speaking, Clint cracks a joke and everyone is busy being as cheerful as they can fake but Steve's mind gets distracted by the curve of Miss Potts's polite smile and the way freckles dust her nose and he wonders when he stopped wanting to draw. It was his most insistent itch, the one he couldn't scratch, this desire to put everything on paper so he could never forget and maybe the old Steve would have drawn Miss Potts's freckles right away, but now he can't see the point of wanting it.   
He nurses his coffee and realizes he now has another thing to mourn for.   
  
  
"Well, Cap, I know it's quite a lot of time you don't get some, but I found the way you were staring at my girl this morning a little bit creepy" Tony says to him hours later, when lunch has been made and Thor has eaten five servings of pasta in one go.   
Steve had gotten up from his seat, proclaimed he was going back to his apartment in Brooklyn and had reached the elevator mere seconds before getting ambushed by the owner of the building, who has made himself scarce all morning.   
Steve still isn't sure what kind of relationship they have right now.   
The unnecessary tension between the two of them was gone and the way Tony had almost sacrificed himself is still fresh in Steve's memory, and he reckons only a great man can get the love of a woman like Pepper Potts. So he makes an effort and gives him a slightly pained smile while Tony continues talking with a dreamy and very teasing tilt to his voice.   
"Like she was something you once lost and you can never get back and believe me, she's a total catch, which explains your crush, and I'm in no way a jealous man but you seemed quite a lost puppy and it can be jarring as a first impression if you're after that kind of woman. I think I should educate you in the fine art of wooing a woman, I'm sure you need my expertise".   
Steve is actually impressed by the speed of Tony's babbling but will never admit it.   
In the meantime he walks to the lifts and starts fantasizing about ripping his ears out before moving in a farm to chop wood for the rest of his life.   
He doesn't shove Tony's arm away from his shoulders for unfathomable reasons but he keeps ignoring him the whole elevator ride for reasons everyone can understand. It's not a deterrent for Tony's rumblings anyway, but he hadn't actually expected him to fall silent just for lack of response.   
When they get to the lab floor, the doors open with a ping and Tony guides him out of the elevator and across the corridor while still talking crap and he's got him so involved that he has forgotten his original plan -namely, getting out of the building.   
Steve takes in his surrounding after a good three minutes and notices that Miss Potts is trailing alongside them, smirking at her phone and occasionally shaking her head in a fond way that makes Steve yearn for the same expression but on someone else's face. To get out of his own head, he actually pays attention to what Tony he's saying for a second. And he's not amused.   
"- you may want to avoid telling them to go back to the kitchen to make you a sandwich, because in this century it's a mindframe that's actually more than frowned upon and-".   
Steve rolls his eyes and finally squeezes out of Tony's hold, sidestepping him until Miss Potts is walking between them.   
"Ohi, don't run away, Capsicle, you need me or you'll never get over your crush on my girl".   
"He's always this tiring, Captain Rogers, don't worry" she says with an indulgent smile and Tony squeaks in outrage, "And he always assumes everyone has a crush on me, he's even quite vain about it".   
"Well, that's because you're a catch" he quips before his phone rings and diverts his attention.   
"Hello, Green Man, I'm coming with a surprise" he says and manages to completely ignore them for more than forty seconds.   
Steve takes a deep breath and thanks God for small mercies.   
The three of them keep walking and suddenly he remembers that he definitely wasn't going this way before getting kidnapped. He also realizes that he doesn't know how to get back to where he started and silently curses Tony.   
He smiles politely at Miss Potts, who has put her phone back in her pocket and is now leading the way.   
They stop outside a glass door and Tony disappears from their side.   
Steve is in the uncomfortable situation of not knowing what to say at a daily basis, but a glimpse of Pepper winking at Tony gets him red in the face without a rational reason and hell, blushing makes the situation ten times worse. He blames it all on Tony, of course.   
He wrecks his brain until he has something innocuous to say.   
"Miss Potts, I was considering helping you out with the charities you were listing before" he says, apropos of nothing, just to not look rude before he flees. She smiles at him but her eyes can't leave Tony, who is waving his hands at Banner while shoving something in his mouth that looks like pie.   
"It would be a great pleasure to have you on board, Captain, and please, call me Pepper" she replies with a soft look.   
("Sure thing, ma'am" Steve remembers _him_ , all of thirteen, charming and endearing already, saying it to a petite twenty-something redhead who's nothing like the woman Steve's talking with now in the 21st century, but God, his mind always brings _him_ back when he's not paying attention and now those words tickle his tongue).   
Steve smiles tightly and nods, kicking his instinctive answer in the back of his mind just when Tony shouts at them to come over the lab table.   
They reach it quickly and are handed a slice of pie -blueberry pie, he notices- while Banner explains their project with a tentative smile -he probably still isn't used to the whole "having to deal with people in a normal environment on a daily basis again" debacle (Steve can relate).   
Steve doesn't even bother trying to understand what they're saying but he's used to it by now.   
He lets his eyes wander until they fall on Tony, who is uncharacteristically silent and is looking over at Miss Potts -Pepper- with a tiredness around his eyes he forgot to hide and that's when Steve notices the weary and unkempt figure Tony carries out.   
That's when he realizes the way Tony is looking at her is just as desperate and full of longing as Steve feels all the time. He seems battered and insomniac and Steve doesn't need to think about it to understand why he hadn't seen it until now, because he knows well enough how to disguise pain and weariness and discomfort when everyone is watching and how tiring it can be.   
That's when he asks himself why Tony brought him in the lab in the first place.   
He wonders if he really is as good at masquerading as he thinks he is.   
But this lasts all of a quarter of a second before Tony's talking at full speed again and maybe Steve should have known he's not the only damaged one.   
Tony Stark is a deeply tired man but a good pretender.   
It takes one to know one.


	2. Fine For Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, people. <3  
> I'm posting this today because I won't have to chance to update for maybe a week and a half and I didn't want this to be forgotten too soon because I'm trash for validation.  
> Seriously.  
> This is me imagining what Steve is up to during the events of Iron Man 3, which I didn't totally dislike as a movie and the fandom shouldn't bash it so hard.  
> Anyway, please tell me if I got Natasha all wrong or any of the characterisations in general.  
> Ah, I didn't mention in the first one that English isn't my first language so forgive me if I'm shit at this.  
> Enjoy~

At night trying to keep it together is more difficult, as it always is in every piece of fiction man writes. Maybe it's about the darkness hiding all the evidence so you can keep it safe where no one can see it, you can keep it from spilling out at the light of the day in front of everyone. You can keep it wrapped in the shadows of your bedroom, a growing beast rattling its cage, bound and chained away so that everyone thinks you're okay. You're doing just fine.  
Steve doesn't know why and doesn't really care, but when it's night and dark everywhere around him, crying himself to sleep seems less shameful that it should feel and it makes it easier to pretend it didn't happen.

 

He jogs around memories just as fast as he jogs around the park, which is to say, really really really fast.  
He has moved to Washington a month ago and he already finds it lacking in everything he needs. But what he needs doesn't exist anymore, so he can deal with the next best thing.  
That's how he spends his time in between missions and visits to Peggy, running around the city to get to know it better, and he likes it just fine, no matter what Natasha says about his lack of a social life.  
("No, Steve, visiting a old woman in a hospice and playing cards with her or painting with her or having bingo nights with her and her nurse is not having a social life".  
"You should really stop having me followed, Nat, I mean it".  
"It was one time, Rogers, get over it. And by the way, I was joking. Please don't tell me you really have bingo nights with her".)  
Anyhow, here in DC he's slowly starting to learn what it is to breathe again and God, he hasn't thought about before for at least eight hours, which is a personal record.  
He has run until he'd felt like he may get tired, then he has turned around and run back home, where he finds Natasha waiting to complain about his life choices -not really a groundbreaking event.  
"Hi, Steve" she greets him with a smug air surrounding her in a devilish halo that promises nothing good -he may be overdramatic, but he has no intention of stopping.  
She waves something in front of his face and he smiles briefly in a polite way that he hopes will prevent him from appearing rude, before opening his apartment's door and sliding inside, not waiting to see if she's following him.  
He stalks directly to the fridge and doesn't startle when he closes its door and finds her perched on his kitchen counter just a few inches from him, her feet swinging slightly. By now he's used to her ability to sneak around without carrying any resemblance of noise and she's clearly annoyed by it. She did enjoy it too much when she made him stutter and jump -and maybe it's about finally wringing genuine reactions from him and maybe Steve has read too much into it. Maybe she just likes to see him suffer.  
She waves whatever she has in her small hands again.  
"I have this tickets for a baseball game I'm not interested in, so I remembered that you like that inane sport and brought them to you".  
"I can't recall when I told you I like baseball" he says before downing an entire bottle of orange juice in a couple of gulps.  
"You never did" she confirms, unashamed, with a smirk that isn't apologetic in the slightest.  
' _And that's Natasha for you_ ' he thinks and he actually snorts out loud before he can stop himself, while he dumps the empty bottle in the bin under the sink.  
He takes the tickets from her and ducks his head as if reading them but he's actually looking at her from under his lashes, honest to God and unspoilt amusement bubbling up in his chest -it's not a thing that happens often and it only does when he's around her, otherwise it's all obscured by a sense of uneasiness and torn apart by the constant clutch on his windpipe.  
"What's her name?" he asks with a teasing tilt to his voice and wow, someone used to say he couldn't lie and look at him now. Lying and faking an easiness about going on in his life he does not feel.  
"I don't know who you're talking about" she says with a very convincing but also very fake confusion as she studies her nails.  
"The lady friend of yours who just happens to love baseball so much" he replies, smirk wide and untamed. Sometimes he can't believe she's for real.  
She shrugs and says: "If you wanted to meet someone you could have told me sooner".  
Steve wants to laugh but it would sound hollow, because he doesn't really know how to laugh anymore, so he doesn't. "But I do have a friend that just happens to love baseball so much" says Natasha, looking like the cat who got the cream.  
He shakes his head, hoping for a way to get out of this, and puts the tickets on the counter right beside her thigh.  
He pulls away and goes in the living room, thinking about how retreating seems always the best strategy.  
"Do you want to stay for dinner?" he asks as he settles on the sofa, because he doesn't really know what to say, as per usual.  
"Steve, I'm serious, it wouldn't cost you anything" she tells him for what seems like the hundredth time this month, rolling her eyes like he's making it really difficult for her.  
"I'm fine, I don't need you to plan my spare time, I can do it on my own" he states firmly, a polite smile crinkling the corners of his mouth, while he reaches for the remote control and wonders what edibles he has in the cupboards that he could cook tonight.  
"Really? How many hours have you spent running around the city today?" says Natasha with a feral grin that dares him to say anything.  
And that's when he realizes that this is the reason she's here, not to trap him into a blind date, but to point out that he's supposed to be actually living his life.  
It's a challenging pose the one she strikes and she knows well that he can't back down from a challenge, not even dead, not even when he knows he's been goaded into it, so he crashes into it without even thinking about it.  
"You probably know it better than I do" he scoffs and then immediately regrets the tone of his voice.  
"Of course I do. Eight hours, Steve. It's not a sane way to spend your time, one day you'll push yourself too much and that's not something I'd like to see".  
She sounds a tad concerned for the first time ever since he met her and that's what does it for Steve.  
If she lets him see so carelessly that she really is worried then maybe the situation is serious.  
She looks like she gave too much away and he doesn't like an uncontrolled Natasha, that means trouble.  
She's usually so unimpressed and untouched by everything and that's what convinces him that he has to be fine. For her.  
He has to convince her, he can't have her concerned, because there's nothing to be concerned about.  
He brings up the most pleasant smile he can muster -and it would have fooled no one back home, but somehow it makes him fool almost everyone nowadays- and he looks at her like she's been imagining things. Like everything's alright and she's making a fuss for nothing.  
He wants to show her there is nothing that deserves worrying, so he can shove away this weight in his chest that feels like guilt.  
He's fine, he won't be a burden to anyone again, he's fine.  
He has wanted it so hard to be true for so long now that he feels this play of pretending is too instilled in his bones for him to know something else. It's what has been keeping him upright, living and kicking (and maybe he's fooling himself a little too).  
"I'm fine".  
And that's where the argument ends for today, because Steve really is a stubborn pigheaded asshole and Natasha prefers subtler means of manipulation anyway. He turns on the TV and starts flicking through channels while Natasha settles beside him with an unreadable expression on her face. But when he stops his television cruising to watch the news and sees Tony Stark falling in the sea, a slight furrow appears between her eyebrows and he's sure she's feeling as horrified as he is.

 

 

Later in the years, Steve won't be able to recall a time he had reached for his phone faster. Nor a time when he'd been so grateful to God for Clint Barton -actually there will be one time, just one.  
He waits for anyone to pick up for a whole day, but obviously SHIELD's lines are flooded and he waits and waits while in these twenty four hours Natasha gets the situation under control and then comes back to him with a tired smirk.  
She mutters softly in her phone the whole time and then suddenly grabs his wrist gently.  
'Clint' she mouths at him.  
He nods.  
She puts the phone on his coffee table and a second later Clint's voice reverberates in the thick silence of the room.  
"Aw, guys, I pulled a couple of strings and called in a couple of favors, and all I have is slightly horrifying news. It seems like Stark did not leave us for good. He's got a tough iron skin, the bastard" sounds of shotgun filter through, but his voice is totally unaffected, "Details are in the files Sheila is sending you. Now, if you please, Nat, I have a target to shoot at. And deadlines, you know I hate those. I'll be in Paris later if you need me".

 

  
Steve knows he isn't the easiest man to deal with, but he has always thought he was justified in his anger. He felt like anger was the only thing that validated him. That made him valuable.  
When some random guy in the street picked on a innocent girl and short scrawny little Steve decked him one in the jaw, he felt justified. When he embarked on a solo mission deep in enemy territory to rescue a hundred soldiers the army gave up on, he felt justified. When Tony Stark mouthed off a little too much and Steve sticked his chest out and straightened his shoulders and gave him back as good as he got, he felt justified.  
Every single time Stark goads him, he falls for it and bounces back. He feels justified, yes, strangely free, also, and fueled by an anger he doesn't want to dwell on.  
Those times he and Stark banter and fight and quarrel like kids, the anger slips off his shoulders a little, finally finds a way to be let out and he's lighter, it's easier to breathe.  
Maybe that's what Steve and Tony are for each other.  
In this century, it always surprises Steve when he notices he actually has someone to care for. Someone he can call a friend. That's what Tony is. That's what Natasha is.  
Steve breathes deeply.

 

Natasha falls asleep on his couch after squeezing his shoulder and folding her legs under herself, quiet in the early morning light.  
He wonders if she's slept at all last night.  
He breathes and watches the news, where Tony is officially alive.  
He breathes.  
He calls Pepper the next day. She doesn't answer. So he calls War Machine.  
And God, the story he tells Steve. It's going to put him off sleeping for the night.

 

The first time he draws again, it consists of two small vignettes in which a tall and overly muscular Pepper carries Tony bridal style and then dumps him in his office, where a pile of paperwork is waiting for him. It's absolute shit.  
Steve sends it to Pepper anyway and then doesn't draw anything for other six months.  
Pepper texts him when she gets the drawing and invites him to dinner; he accepts.  
He buys some bottle of wine which he's sure is expensive enough to quell Tony's fussing and takes a train to New York. It's a good night.  
And if Pepper breaks a couple of hinges of the car's door when she opens it laughing in a carefree way, everyone is too giddy with being alive to really care. They drive across the city and drink and Tony pokes him about how stuffy DC has made him and Steve scowls and pokes him back.  
When he's back to his apartment a lot of miles away and they're even farther away, on the Pacific Coast, he reduces his working out time to two hours a day. It lasts all of seven weeks before it goes all out of proportions again, because he just can't find anything better.  
Steve is no good at keeping his head above water, so he drags himself under all over again.  
And it's even worse this time around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the chapters' titles are songs, btw, as the title of the whole thing actually.  
> I'll go listen to them and make myself sad rn, bye.


	3. A Rush of Blood to the Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something amazing happened to me today so I wanted to celebrate, hence the new chapter.  
> It covers CA:TWS so brace yourselves for all the angst.  
> Enjoy~

Most of the nights, he wakes up sticky with sweat and as lonely as one can be, the drags of his nightmares still terrifyingly vivid, the memories of his mother's soft happy smile and of _his_ head resting besides Steve's on their bed still feeling more real than his actual life.  
But yeah, he's trying.

 

  
After having met Sam, he still feels like his lungs are full of water and he can't breathe.  
Two years of this and he still wakes up most times with _his_ name on his lips, almost out there, but he can't bring himself to pronounce it yet so he tamps down the primal urge of it.  
He stops the name that is just on the tip of his tongue, he pushes it back in along with the gush of breath that should accompany it, he shoves it down his throat and it scratches his trachea trying to crawl back up, leaving a red aching path, and then it pools at the bottom of his lungs and it physically hurts but he forces it there.  
He keeps that breath in.  
He keeps _him_ in.

 

  
DC is going to be good for him.  
It's going to make him forget -that's what he's been telling himself for months- it's going to teach him how to breathe again without having to swallow memories back down, hurting himself -that's an easy lie.  
That's why he runs, so his body burns and his mind is free and he can stop feeling nostalgic about the sickly kid he was.  
He's okay now, he doesn't need what he had when he was small and frail.  
Back in the days, he couldn't run without his lungs betraying him, leaving him gasping and wheezing and hurting.  
Now he can take three laps of the whole damn park and he doesn't even break a sweat because of it.  
He doesn't pant for the effort.  
He breathes as if he's been quietly strolling around.  
And yet he still feels like he's got water in his lungs.  
He hates it.  
When someone tries to make him talk about the old times (which doesn't happen very often, because not everyone is that sensible to realize he had a life he might miss), he is a damn good jogger, just as he always is.

 

 

Maybe he should stop running away and his lungs would empty themselves without him trying, but he can't stop.

 

 

He doesn't want to remember.

 

He is delusional, hopelessly so, he gets it.

Really.

 

 

 

All this time he has thought he could relearn breathing, he has really deluded himself that sometimes he actually has succeeded in a full deep breath.

 

 

This time he lets himself drown and doesn't complain one bit.

 

 

If he really wanted to forget, he wouldn't visit Peggy so often -but still not as often as he would like.

 

 

If he really wanted to forget, he wouldn't go to the Smithsonian every couple of days.

 

 

He's trapped in memories that want out but cling to his insides anyway.

 

 

  
He knows he's drifting, he's losing his focus, he's pushing through in a life he's not living.

 

 

 

 

" _What makes you happy?_ ".  
" _I don't know_ ".

 

 

 

  
He doesn't know how to breathe anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Until he does.

 

 

A face that's been haunting his dreams. A name he hasn't said in two years. That's what it takes for the water to leave his lungs once and for all.  
" _Bucky_?".  
Steve breathes in.

  
He doesn't remember when he said that name for the first time in his life. Maybe it was after Bucky had shot a toothy grin and shoved a hand in his face to help him get up from the pavement and told him "Hi, kid, I'm Bucky". Maybe he told him "Well, Bucky, I'm not a kid, you are", or maybe he told him "Thanks, Bucky", or maybe he didn't tell anything at all. Maybe he got on his feet on his own (because despite what everyone thought, he wasn't helpless), ignoring the proffered hand, and he dabbed at his bloody nose with his sleeve without a single word -Steve's almost sure that's exactly what happened. He remembers the way Bucky nervously swayed on the balls of his feet, though, and the way he slowly lowered his hand -as if maybe Steve would change idea and take it at the last second- and the way he told him: "You sure know how to throw a punch, kiddo" with a surprised grimace. Steve remembers how he smiled proudly, and yeah, maybe that was when he said his name for the first time, maybe he said: "You sure know how to throw a punch, too, Bucky". He doesn't really remember.

  
" _Who the hell is Bucky?_ ".  
Steve breathes out.

  
It's difficult reconciling his last memory of Bucky with this shiny new version of him.  
He remembers him reaching out. His hair were neatly cropped, his face full of emotions he couldn't help showing.  
His hair is messy now and his face so impassible Steve wonders if his facial muscles are damaged or if he simply learned how to keep them in check.  
Fuck, his first instinct really shouldn't be poking his cheek to see if it can properly move. Fuck, fuck.  
Bucky looks at him. Bucky is there in front of him.  
The rest Steve doesn't care about.

  
Two years worth of _Buckys_ flow out of Steve that night, after everything he stands for gets smashed into bits by someone who was supposed to be long dead and has turned himself in a fucking computer. After the first person he's ever fallen in love with looks him in the eye and doesn't know him, pale as the ghost he's supposed to be. After being handcuffed and then rescued in the same ten minutes, only to be brought to hear another dead person talking.  
In this century, nothing wants to stay fucking dead.  
He forces the name out of his lips at least a hundred times, his head laying against the armrest of the sofa he's laying on, in the hidden base where Agent Hill has brought them.  
He's staying in the same room as Natasha and Sam, next to Fury's room.  
He knows Sam is deep in his dreams, while Natasha simply won't fall asleep but fakes it anyway.  
Steve doesn't want to think of how Natasha is hiding her hurt (caused by betrayal and paranoid assholes), because he's got his own shit to deal with.  
What Steve wants is to make sure he's acquainted with that name again before meeting the man himself the second time in seventy years, even if it feels quite silly, laying in the dark, saying just his name.  
He knows Natasha is pretending she can't hear.

 

 

Sam ended up getting more than he bargained for but he took it in stride, he helped, and Steve is once again surprised, because not only he has someone to care for, but he's got people who do the same for him.  
And when later he's in a hospital bed and wakes Sam up from a feeble nap, Steve Rogers is fucking grateful for being alive for the first time in years.

  
But before that, _before_? He got beaten into a pulp, choked, shot at. He fell in the water. The whole time he chugged breath after breath, as if he were a baby in his first two seconds of life. It was beautiful.

  
He remembers the first time they promised each other till the end of the line.  
As things go, it was very clichéd.  
Steve was sick and it was one of the endless times in which they thought he wouldn't make it to see the next day.  
Bucky probably thought he was sleeping or maybe so delirious that he wouldn't remember. He whispered it as a prayer, timidly but with all the honesty and determination of youth.  
Bucky was twelve. He couldn't know the gist of the promise he so solemnly uttered to a feverish young Steve, but later in life it was exactly that phrase that allowed them to come together again and make it through time and pain and death.  
Those words dragged them together through all of human kind combined.  
Those words made Steve kiss Bucky for the first time in 1934. It wasn't a nice first kiss, for Steve had a busted lip and was still bleeding from a gush over his left eyebrow, not to mention that he didn't have a lick of finesse in him.  
Bucky smiled so hard afterwards that Steve was afraid that those damned thugs in the street had disjointed something in his head with a punch. He told him so, Bucky laughed and kissed him some more.  
Those words were said again and again, in between kisses or when Steve's cold turned into something nasty and he wheezed his way through the night.  
They were said after his mother's funeral and when they moved in together.  
They were said the night before Bucky went to basic, the night he came back and the morning before he shipped out for England.  
Steve whispered them in Bucky's hair one of those nights they were camping in a field in fucking Europe and the Commandos weren't around to look.  
Every time they said it, it was a new promise.  
It grew so much they eventually came to understand they weren't able to deal with the consequences of a thing this big.  
But it was worth it, oh God, it was worth it.

  
And that's what Steve thinks about when they're flying above the Potomac and he stops blocking Bucky's blows. It's so goddamn worth it if he gets him back and there is nothing he wishes other than that.  
So Steve promises and he doesn't care if it's the last time, he doesn't care if Bucky punches his brain out of his skull.

  
While he falls, he thinks they're very appropriate last words, so he murmurs them again just for the sake of it, but the sound is washed out by the wind rushing wildly in his ears and he passes out.

 

 

  
Sam fusses after him for three days and doesn't stop when Steve is out of the hospital and back on his feet.  
He insists on cooking his lunch almost every day for at least four weeks.  
On one of these occasions, Steve laughs and says: "Are you trying to insinuate yourself in my apartment as my housewife?".  
"You wish" Sam throws back from across the kitchen, punctuating with a wiggle of his eyebrows, "You wouldn't be able to get a hand on this fine piece of ass even if you begged, Rogers. And no way I'm gonna do your laundry, man".  
"You already do it".  
"I do not do such a thing".  
Steve snorts.  
A while later Sam eyes him warily, that look he gets when he suspects something but won't do anything about it.  
They eat in silence afterward.  
"Well, Steve, let's say I'm growing tired of this little game" he says around his last mouthful of pork, "I give in, you've won. It's been two weeks since Natasha gave you those files. Now, please tell me your plans".  
Steve smirks and takes their plates to the sink.  
"C'mooon" Sam drawls.  
"If you're so eager of throwing away your next months to run with me in a quest to find someone who most definitely doesn't want to be found, then go on" says Steve, opening the tap and then spilling soap on the sponge.  
"Anything for you and your long lost love" Sam says back.  
Steve almost throws the sponge in his face but he refuses to be childish about this.  
He washes the plates and the pots methodically and then leaves them on the sink to dry.  
Sam is a little restless, as if he thinks they will leave right now without packing any bag or agreeing on some sort of plan.  
"Sam, I can't ask you to do this for me". He's got a whole speech planned but Sam frowns and doesn't let a word out of him again for the successive two minutes.  
"Steve, stop it right there. God, all this manpain is gonna kill me. I'm not doing it for him or for you, I'm doing it for me, because I need to be at your side if anything happens or I'll get the worst case of unnecessary guilt ever and I'm sure you don't want to lose that world record. So I'm coming with you and I don't care if we end up in fucking Azerbaijan or some other fucking useless country in this God's forsaken planet, because the moment you get some weird shit in your head and start fighting in bars with a bunch of terrorists armed to the teeth, I will stand by your side and cuff you in that empty head of yours".  
Steve almost does something as stupid as hugging him.  
He wants to thank him but Sam glares and keeps talking.  
"And when you and your boyfriend will finally sort it out, I'm gonna take the merit and then plan your wedding for you. Natasha is gonna be your maid of honor and you gotta decide who'll wear the dress. I don't recommend a white one though, 'cause God knows it if you've been naughty".  
Steve punches him lightly on the shoulder and lets out an exasperated grimace.  
Sam widens his eyes when Steve doesn't deny and giggles.  
"You've been naughty, right, Steve?".  
"Shut. Up." he whines.  
"That's no way to talk to your housewife, young man".  
Steve shoves him a little.

 

  
They spend the following two months scouring America. And the one after that in Italy and France and the whole motherfucking Europe.  
Surprisingly enough, Steve is the one who gives up first. And well, Sam Wilson is right fucking pissed at him, he can see it.  
It's month number five, they're in some forgotten Polish town and it's damn cold because it's the middle of December and Sam tells him constantly that he thinks they won't ever be warm again.  
"No way you give up, Steve Rogers" he tells him with an offended sniff.  
He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his coat and stares him down but Steve is not Captain America for nothing.  
He doesn't back down at the famous Wilson Look Of Reproach™ Sam says he has inherited from his grandma and that alone is the most impressive feat Steve had ever pulled out, according to what Sam will tell him one day.  
Even compared to punching a couple of aliens in the gut.  
"Fuck it, Sam. Every time we get close it's just because he wants us to and probably he's leaving false traces everywhere and he's never been here or on the fucking Amalfi coast or in Sarajevo or in Chisinau or in Chelyabinsk or in Guam or in damn Siberia freezing his ass off like we'll do once we're there again because it seems like he might have gone back there and I've had enough of this".  
"Please, don't ever swear in front of me again, it's disturbing. It's like seeing the Pope kick a puppy".  
Steve groans and hides his face in his hands and the barista of the café waves at them for another fix of caffeine with a sympathetic wince.  
Sam shakes his head no at her and places a hand on Steve's shoulder.  
"Steve" he says gently, squeezing a little, "It's okay if you're tired. But do you really want to have a breakdown here?".  
Steve mumbles a weak and suspiciously teary no and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes.  
Sam pays for their coffees and takes him to their hotel, where Steve gets to have his five minutes of breakdown.  
"You should sleep and if you wanna go back home when you wake up, I'll pack the bags and buy plane tickets".  
Steve thanks him with a feeble voice and falls asleep in under ninety seconds.  
They leave this small Polish town three days later.  
When they land in New York, Sam refuses to acknowledge the drooping slope of Steve's shoulder as a sign of defeat, but Steve has no more strength to keep the appearances up.  
They take a train to DC and they're silent the whole goddamn time. It's unnerving. Sam cooks him dinner in his much smaller apartment and lets him sleep on his couch.  
Steve leaves for his own place the afternoon of the next day.  
He has cooked breakfast and they've watched mindless television until lunch time and then he just goes away.  
"Oi, Steve" Sam calls out before he puts his foot out of the door.  
"Yeah?" Steve sighs tiredly.  
"Do you think he'll come to you eventually?" he stutters, looking like he regrets asking as soon as he closes his mouth.  
"I don't know... I guess he needs to feel safe again on his own. He'll come when he's ready".  
And with an empty smile, Steve is out and the door is closed.


	4. Across the universe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm very self-conscious about this one...  
> I think I fucked up with Natasha, but I really didn't know how to write her even though I love her.  
> And uhm, I know Age of Ultron sucked, but I really had to acknowledge it a little bit.  
> Also, Steve has a kinda graphic nightmare that involves gross things so watch out.

It's not long after they've come back that Steve embarks on a mission with the Avengers and Sam groans so loudly when he hears about it that he's afraid he has woken up old Mrs. Cushing next door. In response he actually gets a handful of alley cats meowing back at him in the street below.   
  
  
  
Steve is satisfied with the way he and his team handled the mission, how they brought the scepter in with the minimum damage made.   
He's proud of looking at this group of remarkable people and being able to call them friends.   
And he isn't in the least envious that suddenly they all have someone or that they all realized what they want.   
Clint is looking at his phone more than usual and he smiles so wide it hurts to look at him, almost effectively blinding them all.   
Natasha and Doctor Banner flirt over drinks, even though it's obvious they feel quite awkward about it. It's almost endearing.   
Tony jokes around and drinks as little as possible -and God, if that's not an amazing progress Steve doesn't know what to call it.   
(Steve still doesn't know that this is just the effect of euphoria in the haze of a successful mission, that none of this is actually real, that Natasha with Bruce is probably the worst idea of the century, that none of Tony's problems just went away, that they're all broken and struggling in some way)   
He's happy for them.   
_ Honestly _ .   
There's no real reason behind the fact that he hides in the back of the room when he suddenly can't deal with any of this soft contentment going around.   
_ Fuck _ , he's miserable.   
He's gonna drink every bottle he finds in Thor's secret stash.   
He yawns and settles better against the window he's leaning against, mulling over a plan to steal from a god's property.   
His fingers accidentally brush the photo he keeps in his pocket along with his old compass and it's just a slow caress over it, but it punches him in the gut anyway. He takes it out for a quick glance and by now he knows every single detail, every hue and imperfection but he can't get enough of it.   
His eyes sweep over the Commandos' slouchy postures, over Peggy's smile.   
It doesn't cause the sharp pain he felt when he thought of them right out of the ice. When he found out they were all dead and buried and Peggy was... well, with Peggy it was what it was.   
The ache is smudged, faded.   
They're gone, he can't have them back the way they were and he's made his peace with that now.   
His heart bounces in his chest because he knows what his eyes will land on next.   
He's kept Bucky for last, like he always does.   
Steve studies his features for a second, takes him in as if it's the last time he can do this.   
Bucky's smirk is smug, forced and genuine at the same time. Steve remembers him being a well of contradictions during the war.   
Wanting to be touched and then pushing him away.   
Wanting him to take Peggy out for a dance and then begging him to stay the night in his tent and just hold him.   
Looking like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin and then walking like he owned the place right after.   
Steve stuffs the photo back in his pocket and tries not to recall the way they sneaked away the night that photo was taken but it's a lost cause.   
_ God _ , he remembers so well how sweet Bucky kissed him.   
And how that sweetness clashed with the way his hands gripped him tight and painful, as if he was afraid to let go.

Steve closes his eyes for a second and he finally can say his past won't choke him, won't cut his air off.   
He's free to just remember.   
He's free to breathe in tandem with the flow of his memories.   
He watches New York at night.   
He doesn't hear Natasha arriving, but he doesn't flinch when she sits in front of him and taps him on the knee.   
Steve keeps looking out at the skyline and it looks peaceful, quiet.   
He bits the inside of his cheek to refrain from talking, from perpetrating the grave sin of breaking such a still moment of quietness, but curiosity wins over.   
"So... you and Banner, hmm?".   
"So, you and Barnes, hmm?".   
Steve huffs a laugh and scratches his forehead.   
He's not even surprised she knows -she's a damn spy after all and he hasn't actually been subtle about it.   
"Okay, okay, I get it" he says, not even denying it, because there's no point in it.   
He suddenly remembers spending a whole night saying Bucky's name with Natasha curled on the chair next to him and blushes at how stupid he is.   
Then he just thinks of how believing she would actually answer that question was very naive of him in the first place.   
With a start, he also realizes that he doesn't want to lie to her, doesn't want to hide something so wholesome like his love for Bucky Barnes, he's damn proud of it and denying it would be the most insulting thing he could do to himself.   
He would probably announce it on national television by mistake and cause a collective conniption all around America and  _ God _ , wouldn't  _ that _ be fucking interesting to witness unfold?   
He imagines the headlines of the tabloids and that's a headache he most certainly doesn't want.   
Steve hugs his knees and dismisses those thoughts, because it's still not the time to make a wild statement, not when Bucky isn't there with him.   
He needs to focus on the person that  _ is _ there with him, so he looks at her and bumps their ankles together.   
Natasha smiles smartly at him and squeezes his fingers lightly.   
They stay still like that for quite a while and it's nice.   
Steve enjoys this type of unharried, easy silence and he's sure Natasha does the same.   
They're kindred spirits, in a way, that's why tonight he doesn't denies her when she's got questions. He's feeling kinder towards himself, so it's only fair he extends it to her too.   
"Steve... I want to ask you something and you know how well  _ that _ goes" says Natasha, flicking her wavy hair off her nose with her thumb.   
It's a small change from how she wore them a year ago but it makes her look so different it gives him whiplash. Where that straight hair made her look sharper and more confident, the gentle waves she now sports make her almost soft and approachable.   
She still carries with her that air of lethal strength she always had, but it's more subtle and he can immediately see it in her because he knows where to look for it. An outsider would have to study her for hours just to get a glimpse of it.   
He likes her hair like that, he has to   
make sure to tell her at some point.   
"Yeah, I still have nightmares from the last time" he whispers with a smirk and then scrunches up his forehead because she seems strangely tense.   
He holds his breath and waits as if she's gonna strike him a left jab in the face.   
Natasha ignores his over dramatic attitude and fishes in her pockets for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.   
He reaches out and she arches an eyebrow at him but passes over a cigarette all the same. He fidgets with it for a couple of seconds while she lights hers.   
After taking the first puff of smoke in, she says in a flat voice: "I thought you were in love with Agent Peggy Carter during the war".   
This is ten times worse than getting hit in the face by the Black Widow, because he's getting questions on his love life by the Black Widow.   
He lights his cigarette with a sour look on his face.   
"But after what went down in DC... I understood a couple of things about you" she smiles at the face face he pulls, "Aw, don't look at me like that, Rogers. You can't blame a girl for being  _ curious _ ".   
Steve rolls his eyes and she chuckles low in her throat, the sound edgier and raw because of the smoke.   
"You're talking but you still haven't actually asked anything" he mumbles with his eyes down.   
The line that her eyebrow draws on her forehead is the perfect summary of her dry humour, along with the way the corner of her mouth is lifted in a lopsided smirk.   
Her fingers look so graceful around her cigarette and he wants to draw it, put it on paper or else it's going to disappear.   
"Carter" she says, enunciating deliberately slow, "How did she fit in all of that?".   
"If I answer your question, will you answer one of mine in the future without complaining?" he asks, because he's not getting out of this night with nothing in his hands after giving away everything he has.   
Natasha rolls her eyes and nods at him.   
Steve takes a deep breath.   
"Well, if you want to know if something happened with her... no, nothing" he shakes his head abruptly, ash falling from the cigarette in his mouth onto his thighs, and he stares at his hands, which are gripping each other so hard his knuckles are white, "Not while Bucky was still alive. I would have never... Then he fell. I didn't have the strength to do much after, apart from punching Nazis in the gut. It was my fucked up form of grieving".   
He pauses, waiting for his lungs to shrink in size and leave him breathless, but he's okay.   
"She kissed me once, if you really want to hear it" he adds when he knows he can, "Just before I got into the plane and crashed it and got buried with it. And I really did love her" he sighs and try to get his hands to unfold.   
Talking about it is easier than he would have thought.   
Natasha is quiet by his side and he knows he could stop there, he knows she wouldn't pretend anything else from him that could tax him that much more.   
They smoke in silence for a whole two minutes.   
"I loved her but it didn't mean I felt for Bucky any less. It's difficult to explain, you know... people experience love in a endless number of different ways. So I wouldn't blame you if you don't get what I'm saying" he ends with an apologetic smile.   
Natasha keeps looking unreadable, presses the butt of her cigarette on the windowsill and takes another one from her packet.   
"Stark would try to find an equation for it so he could understand it " she says with an amused glint lighting her eyes.   
He laughs and almost choke on what remains of his spent, dead cigarette. He doesn't reach for another one.   
"Yeah, I could try and make a maths analogy, just give me a second" says Steve, laughing yet deadly serious, and he thinks about it for a while.   
He smirks so widely when he gets in order what he wants to say. He sticks his index finger up in the air as if he was a professor making a point.   
"Most people think love is an easy addition, right? One plus one, that's it. You're supposed to live your life according to that one calculation. You have a person that meets another one, then there's love. Person plus person equals love. Are you following me?" he asks mockingly.   
She laughs her exhaustion out and he feels light.   
"They tell you that one calculation is going to be your only reason to live, your meaning and your everything and that's it, that's the result. Precise and mathematical, see?" says Steve smugly.   
"But they completely missed out the fact that you meet thousands of people in your life, so there are thousands of calculations to acknowledge that not even maths can sort out. So it happens that one plus one accidentally equals something else".   
"So what? You were with him and thought about her at night?" she scoffs, totally unconvinced and that's what brings him back to the reality of their conversation.   
Steve pats her fingers -he refuses to feel like a patronizing grandfather while doing so, and smiles a sad smile.   
"Life is messy, Nat, you know it better than me. And love may seem like a children plaything for someone, but it's just as complicated as controlling the weather. Well" he frowns, "If you're not Thor, that is".   
He pulls his hair at the nape of his neck a little, in a self conscious way.   
"Natasha, what I'm trying to say is that most of time you can't predict how things will go. How fast your heart beats next to someone, or how many people you will end up loving. It's not an exact calculation".   
Steve takes her hand and holds it for a second, enough to feel her squeeze gently.   
"Anyway, what you wanted to know in the first place is this: yes, I was in love with Peggy and yes, I was in love with Bucky. But they were different kinds of love. I loved Peggy something fierce, I was done in for her, I won't deny it a single time, not once. It was like wildfire. It was important, even if I never acted on it, and Bucky respected it. But with him" and well, this part is painful, cruelly so, "But with him" he repeats and for a couple of horrible seconds he can't go on.   
"But with him, it was something else entirely" he says, and fuck, it seems so inadequate.   
_ It was like the ocean. It stretched out long after the horizon, it was calm on some occasions and stormy on others, it never could dry _ he doesn't add.   
He doesn't have the strength.   
He isn't brave enough.   
Natasha bumps his ankle with hers and he looks up at her.   
She looks like she understands and Steve's heart aches.   
"It was for life. With him, it was for life" he finishes.   
"It still is".   
It's not a question, she's stating it as if she has realized it just now. For the amazing spy she is, she can really be oblivious sometimes.   
Steve shuts his eyes tightly to keep himself from crying and lets out an unsteady sigh.   
"Yeah, Natasha, it still is".   
The quiet of a New York night is never actually quiet, but Steve likes it just like that.   
Natasha slips at his side and presses against him, locking their arms and resting her head on his shoulder and they bathe in the quietness of the air.   
In a way, Steve knows that this is for life too.   
He strokes the inside of her wrist once to acknowledge it to himself and immediately lets her go.   
Their conversations always have frequent pauses, they both need them to regroup, to find their breaths again, because this being well functioning people thing is damn exhausting, so he knows it's not over yet.   
He waits, breathing in the calm air of the night.   
"Will you wait for him?" she asks him several minutes later.   
"What a stupid question" he snorts and pokes her in the ribs.   
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is" she mutters with a smile.   
Steve ponders the possibility of asking his questions to her now, even if this talk is already heavy with emotional baggage, but then he looks outside the window and he closes his eyes and lets himself feel at peace for once.   
  
  
  
The next day comes slow and blurred and Steve plans to sleep his way through the week but Natasha barges in his room and forces him out of bed.   
"You know, even super soldiers need to sleep in sometimes, Nat" he groans, pressing his forehead against the counter of the communal kitchen where they're cooking breakfast.   
Well.   
Natasha.   
Natasha is cooking breakfast.   
Steve is just moping.   
Sam, who has also been brought here by Natasha, pats him sympathetically on the back before falling asleep with his head on his folded arms.   
Steve hates him so much.   
"When are you going back to Washington, Cap?" asks Clint, who is putting so much butter on his toast it's slightly disturbing to watch.   
Steve groans harder and bangs his head lightly on the marble, mindful of it otherwise he's going to get a massive bill from Tony.   
"When we're all sure that the staff is well secured" says Natasha in a stern voice while flipping pancakes.   
"And what about Bruce Banner's staff? When will it be  _ secured _ ?" Steve says without thinking and revels in the horrified face Natasha makes a show of.   
Clint is left choking on his overly buttered toast and Steve doesn't mind him a glance. He doesn't think he could stomach watching him down his mouthful of butter and toast with an amount of coffee so high he could probably drown in it.   
Natasha pinches Steve's bicep and then swats him.   
Once his windpipe is free from the food he almost choked on, the wails of laughter that come from Clint are very loud and that's what makes Sam wake up with a start.   
"What the fuck" he mumbles, almost falling from his chair.   
Steve smirks.   
"You're spending too much time with Clint and Sam, they're obviously bad for you, I forbid you to see them again" she pronounces with authority, wiggling her finger in his face, "They'll turn you from the nice ninety years old boy you are in a thug in less than a week if you let them".   
Clint doesn't even look bothered, he just smirks and keeps drinking his coffee.   
Sam is just lost.   
"Okay, mom" says Steve with a shiteating grin.   
"And don't get that tone with me, Steven".   
"Sure thing, mom".   
That night Steve sends her a meme on staffs and she texts him a photo of her guns resting on her bedside table.   
He can take a hint.   
  
  
  
  
This mission turned into a disaster.    
It got all kinds of fucked up and when he has to endure seeing Peggy, young, beautiful, loving, just the way he left her in another life, so far away, Steve knows he can't take it anymore.   
He's angry, absolutely furious, because you can't mess with Steve Rogers like this.   
You can't dangle what he's lost in his face and get away with it.   
  
  
  
  
  
He ends up falling asleep on a sofa in Stark Tower, still wearing his suit, with Natasha perched on the armrest at his feet and that new girl, Wanda, toying with a string of light flowing out the palm of her hand.   
Everything unfolded so fast and Steve is still reeling from it and he doesn't remember how they got from Sokovia into New York's grossest phallic building.   
He doesn't even know what they're waiting for and hell, he doesn't want to be here.   
Clint is leaning against the door at the other side of the room and he has his phone pressed against his ear.   
"Hey, love, I know it's late... how are the kids?" a pause, his eyes are so red, "Yeah, yeah, bring them on the line".   
He sighs and then he's quietly singing a lullaby.   
Wanda stares at him.   
They all have the signs of the battle on their faces.   
Steve closes his eyes and sleeps.   
In his dream there's someone, a man, laid on a table, his skin is smooth and hairless everywhere and has an indistinguishable color, his face is featureless, no nose, mouth or eyes.   
Suddenly, a bucket is spilling fused metal on his face, his arms, his legs and it molds his features, it caves hollows in his chest.   
Steve expects to find Ultron on the table once the bucket is empty, but he is swiftly proved wrong.   
The metal bubbles with a sick noise and melts colorless skin that flows over the panes of his body and stains the spotless table, revealing other skin beneath.   
He watches what remains of him fizzle and burn and slowly change color.   
A thick layer of this man's skull falls on the table and dark long hair pokes out, dirty with blood and large chunks of dead skin.   
An intricate web of scars surfaces on his left arm and shoulder, down to his hip.   
Steve flinches away from the table and hears a long whine; he thinks it might come from the man on table, but it's him, it's him, Steve is whining and crying and looking at Bucky with horror.   
Red strings sprang out of nowhere and wrap around him, they push Steve on his knees and he's fighting them, he needs to break free and go to Bucky.   
Bucky needs him.   
That's it.   
Bucky needs him.   
Steve's suddenly on the floor crawling towards the table and the strings are tighter with every inch he wins and they're cutting his skin and he's bleeding everywhere, in not a long time he's in a large puddle of his own blood but he's almost near enough and...   
Bucky starts convulsing.   
He falls from the table and gets far away from him.   
Steve sobs.   
The strings tighten around his neck and his head falls on the floor and his blood fills his nose and his mouth, it dirties him everywhere, it's in his hair, on his eyelids, it's all he can breath.   
It chokes him.   
Bucky opens his eyes and looks at Steve with blame written clear in his face.   
He reaches out with his trembling right hand, which is rapidly taking on a normal color, while the left one stays metal like that.   
Steve can't move, he's immobilized, red strings keep him still.   
He cries and watches Bucky who's dying right in front of him.   
" _ Will you wait for him? _ " Natasha has asked him days ago and asks him again in his dream this night.   
Steve finally breaks the strings that are killing him and he slides through the blood, he slips and falls again but then he stands and reaches Bucky's side and that's enough.   
_ "No." _   
That's the answer he gives now.   
Steve wakes up.   
He needs to wash away the blood, that's his first thought and it's all he can focus on, so for a moment he doesn't notice where he is.   
Then Natasha is looming over him with her gun drawn out but hidden from view, looking at Wanda with suspicion -but only Steve can detect it on her face and that's because he knows her tells.   
His reality crashes around him.   
In his dream, he had just finally grabbed Bucky's hand to die next to him.   
In the waking world, he's on a sofa in Stark Tower and his best friend is looking at him with frenzy in her eyes.   
He guesses he hasn't been totally peaceful and still in his slumber and worries about the degree of distress he showed them while having that nightmare.   
Wanda winces and Steve knows she knows. He knows she watched.   
He smiles weakly at her.   
He's not angry.   
"I think I need a real bed, this sofa is horrible, I've just dreamed of drowning under the cushions" he dissimulates and gets up on his feet.   
He notices Natasha holstering her gun again.   
"Okay, I will walk you to your room, then" she proposes with a fake smile.   
They walk briskly out of the room but Natasha doesn't bring him where she's said, instead she grabs his forearm and pulls him in a empty lab at the end of the corridor.   
"Talk" she says with a violence in her movements that makes her rash and uncoordinated and it doesn't suit her in the least.   
This mission has made them all so fucking tired.   
"It wasn't the girl, Natasha, it was just a normal nightmare. It happens" he croaks with a strained voice.   
Natasha studies his face warily, searching for warning signs that he might be lying.   
Her shoulders are tense, her hands bump against her thighs near her holsters every few seconds, because they're shaking lightly.   
Steve is almost motionless, even though the drags of his nightmare still make him want to wreck things and scream a little.   
"How can you be sure?" she spits out.   
She doesn't trust him completely this night and Steve tries to not take it personally.   
She just thinks that he's been enchanted or something as ridiculous sounding as that.   
He places his hands slowly on her shoulders, tilts his head against his chest so she can look him straight in the eyes and gives her a serious face.   
She relaxes a bit, or at least her body does.   
"I just am".   
She rubs her face and lets him hug her.   
There's a settee in this lab and they settle on it.   
Steve pulls her into another hug.   
"Banner went away?" he asks in a low tone, wrapping her tightly in his arms with a strong desperate need of giving comfort and receiving it.   
She nods weakly against his chest and then pushes away.   
She looks whole again.   
She looks like herself again.   
After several minutes, Steve is lost in the memory of Bucky reaching out for him amid his convulsions in the nightmare.   
Steve rubs his eyes and groans.   
Before he fell asleep he couldn't stop thinking about all the pain and death he's seen today and now he's stuck on one of the most innocuous and stupid details of a damn stupid nightmare.   
He's cracked in the head.   
He needs a timeout.   
He scrambles for something to distract him, but he's in pain, he's tired and he just wants to know what to do.   
"Natasha, do you remember that conversation we had two days ago? About Peggy".   
Steve doesn't even know where he's going with this, but it shift his attention for a second.   
She hums a yes.   
"You promised you would answer a question in exchange for the truth about that story, but then I didn't ask anything".   
She just looks at him, arching an eyebrow, af if asking " _ really, right now? _ ".   
"Go on" she says anyway.   
He opens his mouth, not sure what to say now and for a moment his mind takes him back to the way Bucky looked at him with blame in his eyes, the way Steve crawled towards him in a hurry to get at his side.   
He sighs.   
He doesn't know what to do, so he resolves to just ask her.   
In a very roundabout way.   
"Banner is gone. He went away, but you're here" he bites his lip, "But what will you do about it? Will you wait for him to come back or will you try to go after him? Even though you know it's gonna be damn difficult, will you go?".   
Natasha ponders her answer calmly and takes his hands to hold them tightly.   
When she talks, she does it carefully as if she's handling glass shards.   
"Steve, our situations are very different. Between me and Bruce there isn’t the bond you shared with Barnes" she says with a fragile smile.   
Steve snorts.   
This woman is too smart for her own good.   
"So I can't tell you what to do. Therefore, you already tried looking for him, Steve, and it didn't end well".   
He huffs and absolutely refuses to cry -this doesn't end well either.   
Natasha pats his cheek awkwardly and he feels like a child and he wants to hide, so he rests his head in the crook of her neck.   
He is so goddamn tired and tomorrow they will probably have to endure a press conference to talk about the reasons behind their reckless, stupid, stupid actions and once it's over Steve will rant at Tony and not talk to him for days, but now, now he just cries on Natasha's shoulder and gets very confused about what he's even crying for.   
"I'll tell you something though" says Natasha with determination.   
"If I were you, if I felt that strongly for someone, I would want to understand everything that caused him to go. Every single reason, everything that happened to him that made him so keen to run away in the first place" she pauses and frowns, "He's not running away from you though, I'm sure of it. He's running from himself".   
Steve shuts his eyes tightly but tears still fall and he guesses Natasha can feel the wetness, because she jostles him a little.   
"It was bad today, hmm?" she says, stroking his hair idly.   
A shiver courses through him and the desire to forget owns him for a while, but it wouldn't be fair to the people that died in Sokovia because of Tony's ego, so he sinks his teeth in his lower lip and cries for every single one of them.   
  
  
  
  
  
He stops blaming Tony the moment he catches him alone in his lab, looking so lost and hollow while sitting on the floor with a shard of broken glass in hand and blood trickling down his fingers.   
Steve doesn't ask.

 

 

The media doesn't treat them well after this and someone even throws an egg at him while he's out buying groceries to make Wanda's lunch.  
He lets this behaviour wash over him completely.  
It's not important what they all think now that he's got someone under his care, someone to cook an actual lunch for.  
Wanda is acclimating well to his old apartment in Brooklyn, the one he bought when he had been just brought back alive, four years ago.  
She's tentative and shy and only trusts him and Clint.  
Steve took to her like a house on fire and now admittedly dotes on her with the same fierceness of a mother lioness with her cubs.  
He's so giddy the night he manages to make Natasha and Wanda eat dinner at the same table without either of them looking on edge.  
Sam calls him cracked in the head once he has told him this and he can't help his smile.  
When he's asked if he's returning to Washington any time soon, he thinks about how familiar these streets are and how this same thing hurt him so much before he had to run.  
Now he can walk around and breathe and feel like he's finally coming back home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for sticking through the end, have a great day.


End file.
